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dual processor vs quad core
- Thread starter kasuga
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They are about the same speed as the dual core technology improves performance on the 2.5GHz processors, so if prices are similar the G5 is the obvious choice. You might also want to see if you can find a cheap used 1st generation 2.0GHz Mac Pro as that will be a better choice than the G5 when it comes to performance. Plus you don't face issues with liquid colling leakage and you will be able to use Snow Leopard (and beyond).
If they are the same price, I would go with the Intel version, not the G5. It gives you a path for future use, whereas your G5 will be/is obsolete with the next OS X release (Snow Leopard) in addition to having an increasingly limited software suite available.
...and of course they are watercooled
And of course the water cooling has failed for many users.
when there is more than one core the GHzs will be multiplyed by ~1,5 to get the "real" GHZs. so the dual-core will be 2.7 times 1.5 is 4.05 and quad-core will be 11.25. quite big difference.
If it has yet to fail 3 years after its introduction I doubt it will fail now.
the extra muscle in "ghz" has no use when there are pretty much no programs optimized to take advantage of quad core.
Seconded. Quad-core is only awesome if the program/OS can take advantage of it. As of this point I can only think of 3D programs and FCP that do.
Not even FCP, just Compressor and DVD Studio Pro. FCP still uses RAM, and isn't much of a hog on the cores even when editing HD. Motion and Color are very GFX card intensive.
Compressor and DVD use the cores for encoding, and are so far the only apps that benefit from the multiple cores.
I'd grab the Dual 2.0 or the Quad 2.5 if I had a choice. The last G5 revisions Apple made were single chip dual core 2GHz and 2.3GHz and dual chip dual core 2.5GHz.
These models run a lot quieter, are all water cooled AFAIR, take up to 16GB of RAM (which is DIRT cheap now) use PCIe slots, are are literally the fastest G5 Apple machines made. There isn't much of a difference in speed between the 2.0 and 2.3 which is why i'd grab the cheaper 2.0 or quad 2.5.
my rule of thumb is, "Every year a machine is out on the market the price is decreased by a third." Lots of people will try to pull that "Mac hold their resale value" bu!!$h!t on a G5 PPC, but it's just not the same since Intel came.
If you want a Dual 2.0 ($2000) after 3 years you should pay no more than $600 or so. Even if it's fully loaded with 1TB HDDs and 4GB of Ram since all of those parts are CHEAP NOW. No more than $600 period.
The quad ($3300) if you can find one since they are very very rare and still wonderfully fast machines should be around $1000-1100 as you can see.
With the rumors that Snow Leopard will drop PPC support, you may want to wait until then to buy since the Rev A Mac Pro will be around $1500-$1700 to acquire, and high end users will be dumping their quad G5's to get an OS update that many say are really worth it in multicore computing.
If the software is taking advantage of more than 2 cores, the Quad will be significantly faster. If they don't, the quad will still be a bit faster doing 2-threaded apps (it has faster RAM, FSB and dual-core architecture is more efficient than dual-processor), but you will have a large bonus when trying to multitask.
Both 2.7 DP and 2.5 Q are water-cooled though. I'd rather look for a 2.0 GHz Mac Pro - this thing will run circles around fastest G5s (which is G5 Quad) and will run newest software, including OS X 10.6 and beyond. These are more expensive, but will last you a LOT longer, provide more expansion capabilities, run quieter (and they aren't water-cooled ).
Both 2.7 DP and 2.5 Q are water-cooled though. I'd rather look for a 2.0 GHz Mac Pro - this thing will run circles around fastest G5s (which is G5 Quad) and will run newest software, including OS X 10.6 and beyond. These are more expensive, but will last you a LOT longer, provide more expansion capabilities, run quieter (and they aren't water-cooled
).
I'd rather look for a 2.0 GHz Mac Pro - this thing will run circles around fastest G5s (which is G5 Quad) and will run newest software, including OS X 10.6 and beyond. These are more expensive, but will last you a LOT longer, provide more expansion capabilities, run quieter (and they aren't water-cooled
Very true. The Mac Pro has the benefit of being an Intel based machine, and since all of the software will be written for it it will scream past any of the previous models (hence the reason to NOT pay so much for a G5).
The Quad 2.0GHz is the machine I recommend to the mini tower whiners.